Sensible. Tell me, then, what she does during the whole day.
Mávra. But how can I remember it all? And then, I can hardly tell it all, for you will only laugh. Well, I do not care; I’ll tell you a little about it. She rises in the morning at six o’clock and, following a good old custom, gets out of bed bare-footed; then she fixes the lamp before the images; then reads her morning prayers and the Book of the Saints; then she combs her cat and picks the fleas off of her, and sings the verse: “Blessed is he who is kind to the beasts!” During this singing she does not forget to think of us also: she favours one with a box on her ears, another with a beating, and another with scolding and cursing. Then begins the morning mass, during which she alternately scolds the servant and mumbles prayers; she now sends the people that had been guilty of some transgression on the previous day to the stable to be beaten with rods, and now again she hands the censer to the priest; now she scolds her grandchild for being so young, and now again she makes her obeisances as she counts the beads on the rosary; now she passes in review the young men into whose hands she could rid herself of her grandchild without a dowry, and now ... ah! wait a minute, sir, I hear a noise, and it is time for me to get away from here. It is, no doubt, my lady, and I am afraid she might find us together: there is no telling what she might think of it. (Exit.)
PRINCE KHLOR
Before the times of Ki, Knyaz of Kíev, a Tsar lived in Russia, a good man who loved truth, and wished well to everybody. He often travelled through his dominions, that he might know how the people lived, and everywhere informed himself if they acted fairly.
The Tsar had a Tsarítsa. The Tsar and the Tsarítsa lived harmoniously. The Tsarítsa travelled with the Tsar, and did not like to be absent from him.
The Tsar and Tsarítsa arrived at a certain town built on a high hill in the middle of a wood, where a son was born to the Tsar; and they gave him the name Khlor. But in the midst of this joy, and of a three-days’ festivity, the Tsar received the disagreeable intelligence that his neighbours do not live quietly,—make inroads into his territories, and do many injuries to the inhabitants of the borders. The Tsar took the armies that were encamped in the neighbourhood, and went with his troops to protect the borders. The Tsarítsa went with the Tsar; the Tsarévich remained in the same town and house in which he was born. The Tsar appointed to him seven prudent matrons, well experienced in the education of children. The Tsar ordered the town to be fortified with a stone wall, having towers at the corners; but they placed no cannon on the towers, because in those days they had no cannon. The house in which the Tsarévich remained was built of Siberian marble and porphyry, and was very neat and conveniently laid out. Behind the palace were planted gardens with fruit trees, near which fish-ponds beautified the situation; summer-houses made in the taste of various nations, from which the view extended to the neighbouring fields and plains, added agreeableness to the dwelling.
As the Tsarévich grew up, his female guardians began to remark that he was no less prudent and sprightly than handsome. The fame of the beauty, wisdom and fine accomplishments of the Tsarévich was spread abroad on all sides. A certain Khan of the Kirgíz Tartars, wandering in the deserts with his kibítkas,[136] heard of this and was anxious to see so extraordinary an infant; and having seen him, he formed a wish to carry him away into the desert. He began by endeavouring to persuade the guardians to travel with the Tsarévich and him into the desert. The matrons told him with all politeness that it was impossible to do this without the Tsar’s permission; that they had not the honour of knowing my lord Khan, and that they never pay any visits with the Tsarévich to strangers. The Khan was not contented with this polite answer, and stuck to them closer than formerly, just like a hungry person to a piece of paste, and insisted that the nurses should go with the child into the desert. Having at last received a flat denial, he was convinced he could not succeed in his intentions by entreaties, and sent them a present. They returned him thanks,—sent his present back, and ordered to tell him that they were in want of nothing.
The Khan, obstinate and fixed in his resolution, considered what was to be done. It came into his head to dress himself in tattered clothes; and he sat down at the gate of the garden, as if he were a sick old man; and he begged alms of the passengers. The Tsarévich happened to take that day a walk in the garden; and, observing that a certain old man sat at the gate, sent to ask who the old man was. They returned with answer that he was a sick beggar; Khlor, like a boy possessed of much curiosity, asked leave to look at the sick beggar. The matrons, to pacify Khlor, told him that there was nothing to be seen; and that he might send the beggar alms. Khlor wished to give the money himself, and ran off. The attendants ran after him; but the faster they ran, the faster the child set out, and got without the gate. Having run up to the faint beggar, his foot catched a stone, and he fell upon his face. The beggar sprang up, took the child under his arm, and set a-running down the hill. A gilded rospúski (a kind of cart with four wheels) trimmed with velvet, stood there: he got on the rospúski, and galloped away with the Tsarévich into the desert.
When the guardians had run up to the gate, they found neither beggar nor child; nor did they see any traces of them. Indeed there was no road at the place where the Khan went down the hill. Sitting on the rospúski, he held the Tsarévich before him with one hand, like a chicken by the wing; and with the other he waved his cap round his head, and cried three times, “Hurrah!” On hearing his voice, the guardians ran to the slope of the hill, but it was too late: they could not overtake them.
The Khan carried Khlor in safety to his camp, and went into his kibítka, where the grandees met the Khan. The Khan appointed to Khlor his best starshiná.[137] This starshiná took him in his arms, and carried him into a richly ornamented kibítka, covered with Chinese stuffs and Persian carpets. He set the child on a cushion of cloth, and tried to pacify him; but Khlor cried and repented he had run away from his guardians. He was continually asking whither they were carrying him, for what reason, to what purpose, and where he was. The starshiná and the Kirgíz that were with him told him many stories. One said that it was so ordained by the course of the stars; another that it was better living than at home. They told him all but the truth. Seeing that nothing could pacify him, they tried to frighten him with nonsense; they told him they would turn him into a bat or a hawk,—that they would give him to the wolf or frog to be eaten. The Tsarévich was not fearful, and amid his tears laughed at such nonsense. The starshiná, seeing that the child had left off crying, ordered the table to be covered. They covered the table and served the supper. The Tsarévich ate a little: they then presented preserves and such fruit as they had. After supper they undressed him and put him to sleep.